Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • Broadband help – Keeps dropping connection
  • woody74
    Full Member

    I have broadband with TalkTalk but over the last 3 weeks we have started to have problem where it randomly keeps dropping its connection to the internet sometimes for a few seconds and sometimes for 10 minutes or so. TalkTalk have replaced the router and an engineer came out yesterday but could not find a problem. Of course it was was fine and dandy when he was here.

    Anyway to track the problem I have been looking for some software that would monitor the internet connection and log when there is no connection. Just something that does a ping test every couple of minutes would be fine. I have had a hunt around but can’t find anything.

    Can anyone suggest anything?

    somouk
    Free Member

    You could write a script it to run a ping and output the result to a file or run a command as below?

    Fire up a linux VM and run something like:

    ping google.com >> pingresults.txt

    I had issues with talk talk in the past dropping out at busy times. I left them in the end.

    peteimpreza
    Full Member

    We are having the same problem with them.

    Glad to hear of other peoples experiences.

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...
    Latest Singletrack Videos
    peteimpreza
    Full Member

    Any software that will work on a Mac to check for issues?

    Onzadog
    Free Member

    We had this recently. Ran all the checks my end. Sky sent out an engineer, he said it all checked out. Ultimately, it turned out that he was a broadband engineer. It was solved by getting out a phone line engineer who found a dodgy a action back to the exchange. He switched lines and it’s been spot on since.

    bikebouy
    Free Member

    At the farm we’re with plusnet and they’ve had all sorts of issues around output and connectivity.. At home I’m on sky and they too have their own particular take on performance guarantees…

    But it all seems to stem from the phone line/exchange gubbins BT run.

    allan23
    Free Member

    Did broadband support for a few years. It’s basically a signal on a line subject to interference. If you’re on standard ADSL then any electromagnetic interference between you and the exchange could cause the drops.

    What should happen is the router and exchange should establish a connection that gives you the best speed for the line leaving a margin for error. If you get interference over the margin of error then the line drops. It should reconnect at a slower speed with more margin and stay stable.

    The problem happens when the interference is really bad or really patchy. you may end up on a really basic banded profile where you get really poor speed to allow for a stable connection.

    The problem is compounded more by how far from the exchange you are. There’s a limit to how far a broadband signal will travel before the line gets too noisy to maintain a consistent connection. Longer line means slower speed and more interference. As a rough guide if your overall speed is 2Mbps or less, chances are you’re on a longer line and drops might be just part of the experience.

    ISPs should be able to see from the line stats what’s happening and errors should be a rough guide as to where the problem is. This is a good site that explains broadband better than I can:

    http://www.kitz.co.uk/

    woody74
    Full Member

    \thanks all, I posted this and the internet then went down!! The TalkTalk engineer did say that the cable to the house was an old type and that they seems to have patched it onto my neighbours phone line and we certainly get crackle on the telephone when it rains. Problem is he said Openreach will not come out unless they can show there is an issue on the line. Hence some line checking and logging software would deb great.

    peteimpreza -Im on a mac as well so any mac software would be great or I have to power up the old windows laptop in the cupboard. Annoyingly I am in contract until Feb 2016 or off I would go as the TalkTalk TV box is woefully slow as well.

    Onzadog
    Free Member

    Who provides your phoneline? If you hear crackling then report this to the line provider. They will get you to run some checks. Ultimately, get to a point where they say they’ll send an engineer but if there’s no problem, they’ll charge you. If there’s crackling on the line, there is a problem. I assume you’ve tried a handset directly into the master socket.

    This is what happened to us but because we dint actually make calls on the land line, we never noticed.

    brassneck
    Full Member

    I built a little linux laptop and ran smokeping, as it generates nice graphs of packet loss and latency. You can get it running on OS X but is a bit of an arse (hence it was easier to build the laptop).

    Your ISP can do a fair amount of checks and balances (Plus fixed the disconnections for me, speed/latency turned out to be the ‘Photos Agent’ swamping the uplink and not even allowing the odd ACK out) but if it’s down to noise you need to get Openreach out and usually that requires reporting it as a voice line fault for noise. Plug a phone into the master socket and dial the quiet line test (google it) – if you get pops and crackles it’s probably worth getting them out, and they are more likely to accept this as evidence.

    woody74
    Full Member

    Reported the crackling phone and they have done all the line tests and say there is not an issue. Engineer checked the line but as the weather was good, no rain, the crackling wasn’t there. Basically I need something that I can email to them to say here, look you can see the problems.

    peteimpreza
    Full Member

    We are on a fibre package and the line to the house is less than three years old.

    What should I be checking?

    unovolo
    Free Member

    Bear in mind that not every engineer is as competent as the next one, parents had a issue with slow internet and noise on the line which BT had already done line tests on and deemed to be fine.

    Replaced filters, got Sky to check and reset the broadband and even supply a new router.
    Parents bought new cordless phones to replace the old wired handset and I removed the old wired extension.
    No difference to the noise on the line and only a tiny improvement to bb speed.
    Got BT to send another engineer who found a split in the incoming cable where it crosses a neighbouring property,she replaced the cable and fitted a new master socket.
    End result no noise on the line and bb speed had gone from 0.41GBs to just shy of 6GBs.

Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

The topic ‘Broadband help – Keeps dropping connection’ is closed to new replies.